The Most Fun Ways Your Kids Can Learn to Code

Coding is the ultimate "easy to learn, hard to master" discipline. Even a simple coding language can be made to do complex things with enough creativity and perseverance. Which means it's great for kids—toys can teach extremely simple coding languages that will start kids thinking like coders. Then, as they get older, they can take on coding kits that use real languages and allow for more inventive applications.

Everyone knows that music owes a lot to the language of mathematics, and now Osmo turns the insight that coding is a lot like writing music into a toy. After all, music is a series of notes (commands), ordered into repeating phrases (loops), and constructed on a time signature according to principles from music theory (programming language). To play Coding Jam, you don't actually have to have all those parenthetical subtleties in mind. You just use coding blocks—which tell the musicians in the game to play specific instruments specific ways—to create songs (and, parenthetically, you'll learn to code).

For a modest-looking toy with an infantile name, the Itty Bitty Buggy is quite powerful. It combines a number of things that make it extremely versatile: a motor; compatibility with Lego blocks; and the ability to be programmed in Scratch, Python, and Arduino (C++). If you pick up the Creative Expansion Pack, there'll be a whole host of pre-designed projects available. But really, this is a toy where the pre-designed stuff is largely beside the point.

If any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, than the folks at Kano are wizards. And you can be, too. With Kano's Harry Potter Coding Kit, you assemble a wand that uses an accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer to detect every twirl and flick of your wrist. Then you code spells, using kid-friendly command blocks—and raw JavaScript as you grow more advanced.

A simple and brilliant way to get even really young kids thinking like coders: The caterpillar toy is assembled from segments, each segment a 'code block' that tells the caterpillar to move in a particular direction. To increase the challenge, you can set up a target tile and challenge kids to assemble a sequence of code blocks that will get the caterpillar to the target.

Yeah, so Cozmo is an exceedingly cute robot. It's also a powerful programming platform. Cozmo's functions are accessible through an API that has two modes—one for beginners, and one for intermediate coders. Should you get too advanced for Cozmo, you can pick up his big brother, Vector—a more advanced, functional robot that can be programmed with a proper SDK.

For older kids, a better option than a readymade kit might be a introductory programming book like the well-reviewed Python for Kids and this basic Raspberry Pi setup. That will give them plenty of room to grow for years to come, and there's certainly no shortage of other uses for a Raspberry Pi if they end up not taking to coding.

You don't need an elaborate kit—or even a computer—for your kids to learn some of the basics of programming. Robot Turtles is a board game that's based on the Logo programming language and can help teach the very basics of coding as well as general problem-solving skills. But as a number of reviews note, while the box advertises the game as for ages four and up, it may be a little too simple for older kids.

The Piper Computer Kit is a Raspberry Pi-based computer that kids can build themselves, though this one requires a bit more assembly. A customized version of Minecraft also plays a big role here, with it guiding kids through a variety of challenges including hardware-based ones. It's a bit pricier than many similar kits, but as Digital Trends notes, that's partly due to the inclusion of an LCD display that other kits don't have.

The Lego Boost kit includes all the pieces your kids need to build five completely different models (from a robot to a guitar), which they can then customize and interact with though Lego's simple block-based coding app (an iPad or Android tablet is required). And, since it's Lego, kids can also customize their creations even further.

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